ON SALE MARCH ddie loves nothin ore than curlin …...T-shirts with witty sayings he adolescent psychiatric ward at Seattle Regional ospital isn’t exactly the ideal place to eet

FITZFITZFITZ

S P E N C E R H Y D E

WAITI NGFOR

FITZ

ADVANCE

READER’S

EDITION

NOT FOR SALE

Addie loves nothing more than curling up on the couch with her dog, Duck, and watching The Great British Baking Show with her mom.

It’s one of the few things that can relax her when her OCD kicks into overdrive. She counts everything. All the time. She can’t stop. Rituals and rhythms. It’s exhausting.

When Fitz was diagnosed with schizophrenia, he named the voices in his head after famous country singers. He loves puns, foreign films, and T-shirts with witty sayings. The adolescent psychiatric ward at Seattle Regional Hospital isn’t exactly the ideal place to meet your soul mate, but when Addie meets Fitz, they immediately connect over their shared love of words, appreciate each other’s quick wit, and wish they could both make more sense of their lives.

Fitz is haunted by his past, and he’s often not sure what’s real. One memory weighs heavily on his mind—a tragic death he fears he may have caused—but he knows if he can just get to San Juan Island, everything will be okay. If not, he risks falling into a downward spiral that may keep him in the hospital indefinitely.

Escaping the hospital becomes the first step of a journey for Fitz and Addie as they learn about life and love, forgiveness and courage, and what’s necessary to let go and what’s worth waiting for.

SPENCER HYDE spent three years during high school at Johns Hopkins for severe OCD. He feels particularly suited to write this novel because he’s lived through his protagonists’ obsessions. Spencer worked at a therapeutic boarding school before earning his MFA and his PhD specializing in fiction, short humor pieces, and essays. He wrote Waiting for Fitz while working as a Teaching Fellow in Denton, Texas. Spencer and his wife, Brittany, are the parents of three children.

On Sale Date: March 2019Hardback • 5½ x 8 • 240 pages • $17.99 • Fiction \ YA Contemporary \ Mental Health Issues

ISBN 978-1-62972-527-7

To order, contact your usual bookseller or call us at 800-453-3876Sales inquiries and reviewers contact:

Ilise Levine • [email protected] media inquiries, contact: Jill Schaugaard • [email protected]

For ebook advance reader review copies, visit our online catalog: http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com, Click on “Shadow Mountain Publishing.”

UNCORRECTED PROOFAdvance review copy: Not for sale or library circulation

PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT CHECKING AGAINST THE FINISHED BOOK.

s

Cov

er p

hoto

s: N

eidiel

e Tos

ta /

EyeE

m /

Get

ty Im

ages;

Miu

ne /

shut

terst

ock.

com

Bo

ok d

esign

: © S

hado

w M

ount

ain

Art

dire

ction

: Rich

ard

Erick

son

Desi

gn: H

eath

er G

. War

d

s

ON SALEMARCH

2019

HY

DE

NOT FOR SALE

WA

ITIN

G F

OR

FIT

Z

WaitingforFitz_cover_ARC.indd 1 7/10/18 11:07 AM

FITZFITZFITZ


WAITI NGFOR

FITZ

ADVANCE

READER’S

EDITION

NOT FOR SALE

Addie loves nothing more than curling up on the couch with her dog, Duck, and watching The Great British Baking Show with her mom.

It’s one of the few things that can relax her when her OCD kicks into overdrive. She counts everything. All the time. She can’t stop. Rituals and rhythms. It’s exhausting.

When Fitz was diagnosed with schizophrenia, he named the voices in his head after famous country singers. He loves puns, foreign films, and T-shirts with witty sayings. The adolescent psychiatric ward at Seattle Regional Hospital isn’t exactly the ideal place to meet your soul mate, but when Addie meets Fitz, they immediately connect over their shared love of words, appreciate each other’s quick wit, and wish they could both make more sense of their lives.

Fitz is haunted by his past, and he’s often not sure what’s real. One memory weighs heavily on his mind—a tragic death he fears he may have caused—but he knows if he can just get to San Juan Island, everything will be okay. If not, he risks falling into a downward spiral that may keep him in the hospital indefinitely.

Escaping the hospital becomes the first step of a journey for Fitz and Addie as they learn about life and love, forgiveness and courage, and what’s necessary to let go and what’s worth waiting for.

SPENCER HYDE spent three years during high school at Johns Hopkins for severe OCD. He feels particularly suited to write this novel because he’s lived through his protagonists’ obsessions. Spencer worked at a therapeutic boarding school before earning his MFA and his PhD specializing in fiction, short humor pieces, and essays. He wrote Waiting for Fitz while working as a Teaching Fellow in Denton, Texas. Spencer and his wife, Brittany, are the parents of three children.

On Sale Date: March 2019Hardback • 5½ x 8 • 240 pages • $17.99 • Fiction \ YA Contemporary \ Mental Health Issues

ISBN 978-1-62972-527-7

To order, contact your usual bookseller or call us at 800-453-3876Sales inquiries and reviewers contact:

Ilise Levine • [email protected] media inquiries, contact: Jill Schaugaard • [email protected]

For ebook advance reader review copies, visit our online catalog: http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com, Click on “Shadow Mountain Publishing.”

UNCORRECTED PROOFAdvance review copy: Not for sale or library circulation

PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT CHECKING AGAINST THE FINISHED BOOK.

s

Cov

er p

hoto

s: N

eidiel

e Tos

ta /

EyeE

m /

Get

ty Im

ages;

Miu

ne /

shut

terst

ock.

com

Bo

ok d

esign

: © S

hado

w M

ount

ain

Art

dire

ction

: Rich

ard

Erick

son

Desi

gn: H

eath

er G

. War

d

s

ON SALEMARCH

2019

HY

DE

NOT FOR SALE

WA

ITIN

G F

OR

FIT

Z

WaitingforFitz_cover_ARC.indd 1 7/10/18 11:07 AM

FITZ

FITZ

Attention, Reader: This is an uncorrected proof for re-view purposes only. All information (page count, price, and trim size) is tentative and may change without notice. Please refer to the final, printed book when quoting from this copy, as editorial changes may still be made.

UNCORRECTED PROOF • FOR REVIEW ONLY

DO NOT DUPLICATE


DO NOT DUPLICATE

s


FITZ

FITZ


DO NOT DUPLICATE

© 2019 Spencer Hyde

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®, at [email protected]. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.

This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.

Visit us at shadowmountain.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hyde, Spencer, author.Title: Waiting for Fitz / Spencer Hyde.Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Shadow Mountain, [2019] | Summary: Hospitalized

for her OCD, Addie Foster and her new schizophrenic friend, seventeen-year-old Fitzgerald Whitman IV, escape the psychiatric ward and undertake a journey to find the elusive—and endangered—bird, the Kirtland’s warbler.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018029416 | ISBN 9781629725277 (hardbound : alk. paper)Subjects: | CYAC: Friendship—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | Obsessive-compulsive

disorder—Fiction. | Schizophrenia—Fiction. | Mental illness—Fiction. | Kirtland’s warbler—Fiction. | Hospitals—Fiction. | CGFT: Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H917 Wai 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018029416

Printed in the United States of AmericaAlexander’s Print Advantage

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


DO NOT DUPLICATE

1

ONE

My life took off the comedy mask and put on the tragedy mask at the end of my seventeenth year. I won’t get all sen-

timental about it, but you need to hear the whole story to make

sense of that mask swap or whatever.

So my mom thought I needed more help than I was getting

from my regular psychologist, Dr. Wall. I remember him getting

upset once when I jokingly told him I felt like I had my back

up against him at times. I started seeing him after my rituals got

real bad. Like, really messy. He was less than motivational, to

put it kindly. But I’d started showering about four times a day

and washing my hands over a hundred times a day because my

mind was telling me the people I loved would die if I didn’t. That

sounds absurd, right? Don’t I know it. But in the moment it was

life or death. Seriously.

If you look up “obsessive compulsive disorder” you’ll probably

run into some really obnoxious stuff that isn’t all that accurate.

Or, if it is accurate, it’s made to sound like it’s something that just

takes care of itself or that gets resolved by some loving therapists,


DO NOT DUPLICATE


2

followed by some block party thrown in your honor. It’s not all Hallmark-channel type stuff. Trust me.

Let’s be honest: Sometimes we need help but don’t want to face it. I understand now why my mother was looking for more help, for better help, but at the time I thought she was just overreacting. I mean, don’t most teenagers have a three-hour morning ritual be-fore they can walk out the door? Don’t most teenagers wash their hands to keep their families alive? Just kidding. A little. But that’s how it went with OCD. I guess if we get super technical, it’s not all that untrue. But I did need help, and Mom took action.

She took me to see this nationally renowned doctor the sum-mer before my senior year of high school. Apparently it was the only time in the last decade that this particular doctor had worked the floor of the psychiatric ward at Seattle Regional Hospital. But it also meant that I was to be an inpatient.

So, before you get all excited about this kind of added sup-port, know that it meant I had to postpone my senior year of high school and stay in a psychiatric ward—the nuthouse, the puzzle box, the cuckoo’s nest. Whatever. Look, Seattle is far from being a bad place to live, but if you are only able to see the world from six stories up it’s just like any other place.

Here’s how my first day went: I started the day by talking with Dr. Riddle—yes, that was his name, get over it—about the severity of my OCD. I wasn’t hiding the fact that I needed help, but I also wasn’t going to admit that staying in a hospital was the best thing for me. I mean, I was trying to focus on important things like The Great British Baking Show. Have you ever won-dered what it would be like to sample that stuff? What do they do with it all after they bake it? What a waste.

I made a killer baklava, and I was going to miss, like, an


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

3

entire season at the very least. I made Mom record every episode and promise she wouldn’t watch them without me. The last time we watched had been a few weeks before I entered the hospital. I remember Mom walking over to the couch and crowding my space a little. She sat on my feet and warmed them up.

“Richard forgot the bread portion of the presentation this time, and he forgot to preheat the oven,” she said, spoiling it. I wasn’t there yet. Two minutes later, Richard indeed made both those mistakes.

My mom was a bit of an amateur baker herself, though she never let things prove for long enough; she was too impatient. I had proof.

“Look at that,” I said. “Richard lacks toast, and he’s still toler-ant. More than I can say for you.”

“What? I’m tolerant. Except for lactose.”“You don’t lack toast. You had some for breakfast. I saw it.

But sometimes you’re still intolerant,” I said. “Maybe you’re also gluten-intolerant. Maybe you’re also flour-intolerant.”

“This is why nobody can watch shows with you, Addie,” she said.

“You’re a flour-ist!”“A florist?”“No, but I’d love to see a florist who only sold flours. Tapioca.

Potato. Spelt. Buckwheat,” I said.“You’re obnoxious,” Mom said, smiling.“Also, you can’t preheat an oven. It’s not possible. Anything is

technically preheated. What you do is heat the oven,” I said. “It’s like how we say an alarm goes off. Well, that would mean it was on to begin with. We’d be relieved to have an alarm go off, so it would stop sounding, you know?”


DO NOT DUPLICATE


4

“Like I said—obnoxious,” she said.I was so sick of Richard being named Star Baker over Martha

just because he had better presentations. It only matters how it tastes! Martha was the baker with the right flavors, and I thought that should win out over looks. Frankly, that should win out over anything.

I was there in the ward after Mom had explained why I needed the extra time in the hospital or whatever, so I wasn’t too shocked by her leaving, though the fact that I was alone really hit me later on.

“This is about you, Addie,” she said.I alternately blinked each eye because I was counting to the

number seven each time I heard my name. I’d been starting to think of the disorder as a paradox. Zeno, the School of Names—they both had the same idea, which was this: “A one-foot stick, every day take away half of it, in myriad ages it will not be ex-hausted.” That’s how I felt. Like I could walk halfway to the end of the room but never make it to the wall. Not really. Because I’d only ever be able to go halfway. I felt that even with all of my rituals, I’d never really make it to the end. It’d be impossible. At times, I felt impossible. Zeno had it right—an infinite number of rituals, and I’d still never arrive.

“I’m just winking at you, Mom. You know that.”She smiled and hugged me and started crying. Like, big and

wet and messy kind of crying. I won’t lie and say I didn’t feel it, but with all the doctors milling around, I tried to be strong, and I thought not crying was mature. Looking back, I know I was wrong and I should’ve just let it happen.

I know a lot of things now, but at the time I was so consumed by my own disorder. It might look like my stay at the hospital was


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

5

just a stopover for some new meds, or for added doctoral support. But it wasn’t. I needed serious help, and I didn’t want to admit it.

Each morning before school, I’d walk to the bathroom, careful not to brush the wrong thread when I reached the threshold. I’d stand up and sit down three times before entering the bathroom. I’d sniff two times with each step while also counting the tiles be-neath each foot. I’d make sure I blinked with my left eye before entering the shower. Counting each tap on the shower wall, each tap on the faucet, and each throat-clearing, I’d net two hundred and seven. I’d do this seven times before exiting the shower. Then I’d wash my hands forty-three times. Those two numbers added together made two hundred and fifty, and the two and the five made seven, of course—my favorite number. Finally, I’d dry off, sit on the bed, and count to eleven. What a great number, eleven: it’s first place two times, or seven and four, which is nice.

If anything went wrong at all during the ritual, I’d have to leave the bathroom and start over with a new towel, the carpet fibers back in the right place, the right amount of blinks per step, the right motion for each scrub, the right thoughts for the en-tirety of my time in the shower. If I pictured Mom’s face and thought of the words death or cancer or tragedy, I would have to turn the water off and start over.

Again. Again. Again. The dichotomy paradox in action. I was a living paradox.

My downward spiral was similar to that water, getting sucked down and down until the rabbit hole was no longer a myth, and I was stuck in some alternate reality wishing there was a potion I could drink to get me out of there.

But I had to hope. That’s all I had left between my bleeding hands and crushing thoughts.


DO NOT DUPLICATE


6

My rituals weren’t just confined to the bathroom. They fol-lowed me everywhere. I’d have to flip the lights on and off sev-enteen times before stepping on the stairs. I’d count each step, blinking three times with each left-foot step, four with each right-foot step—all the while, thoughts of death circled in my head. If I didn’t tap the stair banister in the right increments, three times each, I was convinced that cancer would eat my mother from the inside out, turning her bones into dust.

She’d watch me with large, sad, hopeless eyes as I’d back up the stairs and start over. Each number I counted was tied to the safety of my mother, of my dog, of anybody or anything close to me. One misstep, one ritual imperfectly observed, and I had to start over so my mom wouldn’t get in a car wreck on her way to work, so the dog wouldn’t get tumors in her legs and slowly crumple to the floor. Stupid, I know. But try telling my mind that it wasn’t as real as the thumping machine in my chest, pulsing behind my rib cage.

I felt embarrassed and ashamed in equal parts every morning. I hated taking so long, making my mother late for work, even as I knew that what I was doing was saving her, was keeping her alive.

I know it sounds ridiculous. But if you had to face three hours of that kind of thinking every day just to shower, you’d know there had to be something more, some other kind of recourse, some other kind of help. And while the compulsions didn’t stop after the shower, at least I was able to go to school and lose myself in class lectures and books. In words. My only savior sometimes.

We’d drive to school, and she’d tell me I might need to start getting up earlier, or she’d gently ask me if I’d like some lotion, while not mentioning the cracks in my hands where the cold was eating its way in, splitting my skin like veins rising to the surface, or the dried blood caked on my knuckles.


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

7

She was always careful with her words, and she never talked about how hard it was for her to sit and listen to the light tick on and off, to the shower handles get tapped, to the water purling through the drain for hours. But I knew.

Desperation skulked in the corners of my mind, in the shad-ows, snaking through my body and squeezing my heart.

I counted each beat. I had to.Mom tried her best to keep me focused on other things. She

was good at that. She even got a purple streak in her hair one day at the salon to remind me that things we do on the outside don’t always determine the inside. But I still washed my hands that night. Whatever. She was trying.

“Make friends. Be nice to the doctors. Don’t mock them. Don’t be a smart aleck.”

“Is that an Alec with a C or a K?”“Stop it,” she said.“C’mon, Mom. Give it a rest. I only joke with people I like.”“Making fun is not the same as joking,” she said.“Semantics.”“Addie, I want you to be able to go to school without worry-

ing about your hands bleeding because you wash them too often, or worrying about your family, or never feeling clean.”

She started crying again. I looked down at my cracked hands and rubbed them together, then folded them under the sleeves of my sweater.

“I want that, too,” I said.I told you I wasn’t going to get all sentimental, so don’t think

this was a regular interaction. I was the queen of avoiding emo-tions by putting on my comedy mask and acting like everything was fine. I made up stories about my life, about who I would be


DO NOT DUPLICATE


8

later, about who I was then, about who I was friends with, and about what I was destined for. Whatever. You would too if you had to live with the aching parasite of relentless obsessions.

“Comedy or tragedy, Addie?” Mom said. It was a game we always played, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I hugged her closer and cried on her shirt. Don’t judge me. It was real.

So Dr. Riddle threw me into Group Talk the first day. I quickly learned that Group Talk was just an overly generalized name for spending an overly emotional, overly dramatic, and overly annoying hour and a half with seven other people. We’d eat lunch after group, then I’d meet with the Doc one more time before heading off to Therapeutic Activities and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. In the evening, the other patients and I usu-ally sat around and watched a film together before separating to our small whitewashed rooms with small white beds and a ridicu-lous excuse of a pillow. That’s about how most days went.

But I want to start with that first day for two reasons. One, obviously, it was the beginning of my journey. But it was also the day I met Fitzgerald Whitman IV. Totally pretentious name, I know. And don’t worry, he knew it too.

So, Group Talk. The seven of us sitting there on cheap metal chairs with one of the main therapists in the ward who ran the whole thing. Sometimes Dr. Riddle sat in and listened, but more often than not it was one of his lackeys. That’s what I called them, anyway.

Dr. Tabor was the leader of the group that first day, and most days thereafter. He wore these oversized glasses and was balding and looked to be in his late-twenties or early-thirties. He had this corny smile that reminded me of the guy on the Quaker Oats


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

9

logo. Dr. Tabor started every freaking meeting by asking us to explain our most recent encounter with our “Core Issues.”

We met in this lousy room with a bunch of over-the-top clichés printed on the walls. Things like “Stop Wishing, Start Doing” and “Your Only Limit Is You” and my least favorite, “What You Are Looking for Is Not Out There, It’s in You.” You know, overly trite quotes that made me want to throw up all over the walls. I was pretty sure I was allergic to banal platitudes. Whatever.

But that first time I really didn’t notice the quotes. I just walked in and sat down and blinked at the floor and tapped my leg six times on each foot and rubbed my hands together and waited for something to start.

After Tabor talked about our core issues, he related a story—as he would do every day, I’d come to learn—that we could dis-cuss. We had to introduce ourselves before making our first com-ment: first name, age, what you were in for (like I was in prison or something, no joke), and how you would cope with the issue presented that day or that week.

“Addie. Seventeen. OCD. And I came in late so I didn’t hear the prompt or whatever,” I said.

I looked at my feet and then back up and noticed that, while most of the group were staring at the floor or at Tabor, one boy across the room was looking right at me and smiling with this ri-diculous, smug-like grin. He had curly, dark brown hair and these really cool gray eyes and these broad shoulders. He looked to be about my age. He slouched in his chair and had his feet crossed and his arms folded over his sweats. He was wearing a tie-dyed bandana and a hoodie that said Om Is Where the Heart Is.

“It’s a real crumby situation,” he said.


DO NOT DUPLICATE


1 0

“Thanks, Fitz. I’ll fill her in,” said Dr. Tabor. “But first I’d like you all to say hello to our newest member of the group, Addie.”

They all gave me halfhearted waves. Except Fitz, who just nodded his head like he was hip or something—or too cool to raise his hand.

“I often start with current events, Addie. Then we gauge our reactions and discuss the emotions inherent in those reactions,” he said, smiling and leaning forward and putting his hands on his knees. His massive, white doctor coat fell over the chair and made it look like he was floating. I hated that coat.

“In the news this morning, there was a front-page article about a man found dead in a giant dough mixer at a bakery on Beacon Hill. He left behind two dogs. His neighbors loved him. His family is seeking millions of dollars from the bakery for this accident. Now, I want you to consider what you’d do, as a family member. How might you react? What would be the best way to deal with the situation? How would you cope?”

Dr. Tabor opened up one of those stupid manila folders and prepared to write down my comments, I assumed.

“Sounds like he really loafed on the job,” I said.Look, it’s not like I was trying to get a laugh. In fact, it was

way too easy. I like challenges for my comedic outbursts, but this one was meant to deflect, which is why I passed over all the great proving jokes available. I hated being put on the spot, and I hated talking about my emotions, so I pushed them away by being deadpan or whatever.

Fitz sniggered, and Dr. Tabor ignored my comment, maybe hoping my comment was accidental in nature. Hint: nothing I say is accidental in nature, or in any other way. I’m kind of always acting, if you will. And you will.


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

1 1

“What’s that?” said Tabor.“I take it his family is suing because he just couldn’t rise to the

occasion?” I said, raising my eyebrows and feigning seriousness.Dr. Tabor didn’t know me yet, so he was unsure how to re-

spond. “I doubt his family is worried about how hard he worked, though I’m sure they are saddened by his passing. What would you do, if you were his sister?”

“I’d tell my parents that at yeast they still had me,” I said, hurrying over the pun so Tabor would think I was actually being honest.

“That’s good, Addie. Remind them that they still have things to look forward to, people to care for, and other fires of love to stoke.”

“Guess that’s what happens when you stand a scone’s throw from a mixer,” said Fitz, smiling at me.

“That’ll be all, Fitz,” Dr. Tabor said. “This is a real person.”“A real person working on a recipe”—I paused—“for disaster.”I smiled. That one had been for Fitz, if I’m being honest.

And I am. But then I was immediately aware of how inadequate I felt in the presence of so many people. I was talking like I was at home in a familiar setting. Maybe it was because that’s how Fitz made me feel, because he kept the joke going.

He smiled back, and I noticed he had this huge Julia Roberts-type smile, but with a big gap between his two front teeth.

My look: I was in jeans and a sweatshirt, balling the sleeves up in my palms because that’s what I did when I got nervous. My long brown hair was always twisted into a bun on my head with a pen in it to keep it stable. I had dark brown eyes that I hid behind numbered blinks, and a chest that was smaller than I’d hoped and legs shorter than I’d like. I was entirely average.


DO NOT DUPLICATE


12

But at that moment I realized my sweatshirt was, like, in-credibly bland, and I felt super self-aware. Whatever. We were all in the same adolescent psych ward, and clothing options were limited.

Dr. Tabor was explaining how our jokes were a typical avoid-ance tactic, but I was ignoring the doctor because I was watching Fitz. I thought the gap in his teeth was kind of handsome, espe-cially when his gray eyes lit up his large features. I’m not trying to fixate on the fact that he was attractive—he was attractive—I just wasn’t sure of anything else about him at that point. Well, I knew he was clever, but that was also partly based on basic assumptions.

I decided I’d keep looking at him throughout the meeting to show him that I wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe that’s not a good way to put it. I mean, I wanted to be going somewhere—read: home. Anyway, he seemed very confident—not just based on pos-ture, but the way he ignored Dr. Tabor and kept whispering to the people on either side of him. I’m surprised the doctor didn’t ask him to stop talking.

Next to me was Doug. He was fourteen, had Tourette’s, and was a pathological liar. Like, something beyond what you’re thinking. Something serious. He was wearing this massive fur hat with the earflaps poking out from either side of his head. I learned to really like Doug because he was totally arrogant, but had no idea that’s how he was coming across. And he was kind.

Across the room, next to Fitz, was Junior. That’s the only name I ever heard him mention, anyway. He was a big seventeen-year-old who looked like an all-star athlete, but he had this crazy-bad acne all over his face and it made me feel sorry for him. I hate that sometimes we don’t get to choose what our mask looks like. At the same time, I guess that’s what makes us turn on other parts of


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

13

our personalities that otherwise would stay hidden. You know, like working a muscle that would otherwise atrophy or something. Fitz looked like an athlete too, but a little smaller, I guess.

Anyway, Junior was in for anger issues and seizures—I know, a super weird combo. He often said, “It’s just funny, that’s all,” and that’s how we knew he was starting to get really angry and on the verge of completely exploding. He said when the seizures were on their way he heard something like birds’ wings rapidly beating in his ears, or the sound of cards shuffling.

I liked Junior because he was the most honest of anybody in the group—meaning he didn’t cover up his emotions by putting on a comic (or even a tragic) mask, or anything in between. What would that be, anyway? A rom-com mask? A tragicomic mask? C’mon. Semantics.

Dr. Tabor finally got around to Fitz for real and had him in-troduce himself.

“Fitzgerald Whitman IV. Seventeen. Hold on, I’m getting some new information,” he said, leaning sideways. He wasn’t leaning into Junior next to him, but acting like he was listening to someone just behind Junior, some imaginary person.

“You sure?” Fitz said, then waited as if for a response. “Okay, I’ll just roll with it. Thanks.” He turned his attention back to the group. “Apparently I’m in for schizophrenia, according to my friends over there.” He pointed to an empty corner of the room near Dr. Tabor.

Dr. Tabor immediately settled his face in a Let’s be serious look, lowering his eyebrows and looking at Fitz in that annoyingly doctor- ish way—a mix of disappointment and encouragement.

Fitz looked at me and saw that I was smiling, I think, because he smiled pretty big himself before turning back to Tabor. The


DO NOT DUPLICATE


14

hour and a half flew by, and I started looking forward to spending my mornings perpetually disappointing Tabor by not ever allow-ing true emotions to enter the room.

True emotions would mean that I was facing my OCD, and that would mean I was ready to do some actual work. I didn’t want to do either. I hated the fact that I needed serious help, but more importantly I hated that I knew I needed serious help. I couldn’t deny it anymore. But I wasn’t just going to let it happen. I was too defiant for that.

My junior year had been a mess. I spent pretty much all of my time at school, or visiting the psychologist, or at home read-ing or just hanging with Mom.

Mom taught history at the high school near Puget Sound where we lived. Dad was out of the picture pretty early in my life; he’d died of heart failure. It always made me angry. Everything was now post-death. Post-Dad. And it’s genetic, so I’m constantly listening to my heart and counting the beats and wondering how big my heart is. That’s another thing I do in the shower—I have to count seventeen beats before I can wash my hair, and if I mis-count, I have to start over. Like, the whole process has to begin again. The paradox of Addie. That’s me. Sometimes I wonder how big my heart is not because of Dad or death, but because I tend to push others away. I wonder if my heart is abnormally small in that way.

Mom was fun to talk with, and she kept me living outside of my disorder at the worst times, but I spent most of my time read-ing short stories or plays or screenplays of movies I really liked. Sometimes, if Mom wouldn’t let me see a movie in the theater, I’d order the screenplay and read it anyway. Sounds nerdy, but nerds are cool. Get used to it.


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

1 5

I wanted to be a playwright someday, so I was working on reading all the classics and studying story arcs and how they created emotions in the audience, and how they built charac-ters and all that. Everything from Shakespeare—I called him Mr. Shakes, but that might be inappropriate with Junior’s seizure issue and all, right?—to August Wilson.

I wasn’t a shy person or anything, but I also wasn’t one to show off my, like, performative disorder. I didn’t want to go to a friend’s house and alternate eye-blinking and hand-washing and throat-clearing in specific, numbered intervals and have every-one be all uncomfortable and afraid of how to respond or how to avoid mentioning something that I was struggling with. It made me a selfish person, but I had no other options.

My mind didn’t allow me much time between washes. The hospital was different because they didn’t allow me to wash, so I just got angry. Junior understood that world better than I did.

“How would you deal with this incident, Fitz?” said Tabor, drawing my attention back to the story of the man who died at the bakery.

“Well,” he said, looking at me, then at Tabor, “I’d make sure to check with my friends first.” Fitz looked at the empty corner just behind Tabor. “But then I’d approach any extended family and see if there was anything I could do to help.”

“Very good,” said Tabor.“But that wouldn’t work,” I said, surprised at my own bold-

ness and eagerness to engage in the conversation.“Why not?” said Tabor.“Because people don’t do that. Nobody asks the family if they

need anything, if they can help, and really means it.”“That’s a pretty bleak perspective, Addie,” said Tabor.


DO NOT DUPLICATE


1 6

“But it’s the truth. Nobody in this room is going to say any-thing that’s true and completely unmediated. We all have masks we wear and games we play to try to portray the least vulnerable version of ourselves. We want to be looked at but not really seen. It’s all a performance. We might ask that family for help, sure, but we’re doing it while wearing the mask of ‘the helpful neighbor.’ We’re doing what society expects of us, not something we truly want to do.”

“Okay,” said Tabor. I could see he was formulating a re-sponse, but he was too caught up in writing down notes in his stupid folder.

“In the end, we’re all pretty selfish. We like the stage and we like the lights on us and we like hearing the crowd roar, but we don’t really want anybody to know just how long we studied those lines or worked on those facial expressions or sweated and prayed to find some understanding of what it all means to be given a role in life and how we are supposed to play it. We’re all just comic figures hiding the tragedy beneath. Or we’ve given up and accepted that our play ends in death, so why bother getting the makeup on or even performing to begin with? We don’t really want to help that family. Especially when it’s a family in knead. Get it, Tabor? K-N-E-A-D?”

I couldn’t help myself. I felt myself getting too serious, so I turned back to humor. I didn’t like facing the serious side of myself.

“I get the first part, Addie,” he said. “And I think we should discuss the idea of vulnerability at our next Group Talk.”

I saw Fitz roll his eyes when the V-word was mentioned.“We should also discuss what she said about acting and

masks,” said Fitz. “That was interesting. I hadn’t thought of it like


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

17

that. Shoot, maybe it’s all just an act, Tabor. Maybe you feel like you’re under the lights right now, and all you’re doing is playing a part. Do you really want to help us, or do you just want to study us so you can write a paper for one of those pretentious journals? What are you after?”

Dr. Tabor brushed the comment aside and told us we’d come back to my comments the next morning. Then he instructed us to all say something positive to the person next to us. As group ended, orderlies waited at the door to direct us to our next ther-apy sessions.

“Don’t worry,” said Fitz, walking my way as we all stood. “The orderlies only help you for the first couple of days. Then you get some freedom.”

“Freedom?” I said, pointing to the barred windows on the far side of the room. Not all the windows had bars, but our room did for some reason.

“Don’t worry. One day Junior is going to rip those out of the wall and we’ll all be able to jump. Also, be careful saying that word around here. We’re all a little jumpy.”

He shouted the last part and smiled at Dr. Tabor, who just shook his head disapprovingly.

“Quite the mask,” Fitz said to me.“What?”“The one you’re wearing. It’s gorgeous. And if it is really all

an act, I want to see you take the stage, Addie. Front-row seats, please.”

“I’m jealous of you,” I said.“Oh, yeah, why’s that? Can’t do a one-woman show? Or do

you just like the handsome gap in my teeth?” He smiled bigger and pointed at his mouth.


DO NOT DUPLICATE


1 8

I laughed. “It’s just that if I had you on the stage, I’d have a full cast. Do you have names for your invisible friends?”

I was worried I may have overstepped, but I tried to act con-fident in my comment.

Fitz sidled up to me, leaning in and almost whispering. “That’s not a good way to introduce yourself, Addie. I mean, I can call them imaginary because we’re so close, but when you say it like that, it makes them feel like you don’t believe in them. It’s okay, Toby. Don’t cry,” he said, acting like he was putting an arm around someone’s shoulder to console them. “Big, crocodile tears,” he mouthed to me, as if shielding Toby from his words. I’d learn later that Fitz kept up this cheery façade so he didn’t have to confront the shame of those insistent voices and their ever-present squeeze. But like I said, that came later.

I coughed three times because two made me feel uncomfort-able and four was a number I equated with death. Sometimes. Sometimes four was nice. Whatever. Then I blinked, alternating eyes, seven times. Being this close to someone I found attractive made me nervous, and when I got nervous I got anxious, and when I got anxious my compulsions tended to skyrocket. Like, to an obnoxious level.

“Morse code isn’t going to work either,” he said, pointing at my blinking, “but it does make those big brown eyes even prettier. If you want to get to know the whole gang, we should meet up for lunch. I know this great place. They have these awesome orange trays and this incredibly runny applesauce. It’s so runny you could swim in it. Just imagine it—it’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?”

I was kind of turned on by the way he stared at me with so much confidence. He had zero apprehension, or so it seemed.

“You should sit next to me at lunch. First, I have to go find


DO NOT DUPLICATE

WAITING FOR FIT Z

1 9

out which one of my imaginary friends tried to steal some meds from the pharmacy and a keycard from an orderly. Probably Lyle. He’s wily.”

“I would love to meet Lyle.”“I’ll see if he can make it,” he said.We walked to the door and out into the hallway, sunlight

pooling from windows that overlooked the Seattle skyline. The fiery leaves of September caught in branches like small embers tipping onto the ground. Threadbare clouds scudded past, and a small smudge of orange hovered in a corner of the sky.

That’s when Martha stepped into the hallway. Martha had worked as an orderly at the hospital for years. She wore those ridiculous shape-up shoes that claimed to improve your calf muscles. She was a little on the heavier side, and had this amaz-ing grin and this awesome black hair that always looked like she just rolled out of bed. Like, always. She also wore a fanny pack. I wasn’t sure what it held, but I was glad fanny packs were still go-ing strong. Best of all, she was always genuine. I never had a bad thing to say about her, though sometimes I tried.

“She’s here, right? You see her too?” said Fitz, motioning to Martha.

Martha and I exchanged a look.“Can never be too sure in my condition,” he said. “Meeting

new people is always a test.”“Sure, act like you don’t know me, Mr. Fitz,” said Martha

before moving on.“Okay, I guess it’s time to go, Addie . . . ?” he said. He hung

onto my name as if asking for the rest.“Addie Foster.”“Okay, Addie Foster. See you at lunch. I’ll be wearing the


DO NOT DUPLICATE


20

slip-resistant booties and these killer sweats. If I’m late, don’t wait for me—it just means I’ve been detained because I have a serious, tragic condition eating away at me constantly.”

“And a morbid sense of humor,” I said.“I also love fast food and B-grade movies and Ultimate

Fighting, so I’m probably up there with the elite thinkers you seem to like. You know, the ones who write those plays you seem to enjoy, based on your comments in group. You like to talk about acting, at any rate. But didn’t Chekhov say you can’t put a truffle on stage if you’re not going to eat it in the next scene? Something about not breaking your promise to the audience?”

“A rifle,” I said.“A trifle?”“Rifle,” I repeated.“Semantics,” he said, as he began walking in the opposite di-

rection. “See you at lunch, Addie Foster. Don’t stand me up, un-less you find me on the floor.”

The orderlies nudged me and nodded in the direction of Dr. Riddle’s office. I started to walk down the hall with my two new friends. When I looked out the window on my left and saw the clouds splitting and gathering weight, I smiled. I watched the white clouds set against the darkening sky and I could only see it all as nature’s handsome gap.

I wanted to know more about Fitz. I needed to know more. He was the only thing keeping me from getting lost in the white-washed walls and medical halls of the hospital where I was sup-posed to be confronting my core issues. Whatever.

It’s not like I was ready to eat that truffle anyway.


DO NOT DUPLICATE

Documents

ON SALE MARCH ddie loves nothin ore than curlin …...T-shirts with witty sayings he adolescent psychiatric ward at Seattle Regional ospital isn’t exactly the ideal place to eet